Epson’s continued growth in SE Asia a result of focus on business sectors
Epson’s growth within Southeast Asia continues to strengthen as it focuses on growing its corporate and industrial business, and as it emerges as a technology company driven by its core technologies. It has shown consistent revenue growth over recent years as it drives expansion within the business segment, with 9% growth across the region in FY15 in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines, with positive growth over the past five years. In the mid-term, we expect to continue a double-digit growth trend.
Epson will continue to focus on its four key areas of innovation to drive growth – Inkjet, Visual Communications, Wearables and Robotics. Announced earlier this year, the Epson 25 vision aims to create a new connected age of people, things and information with efficient, compact and precision technologies. It provides the technology direction for the company and is the next step in Epson’s growth as a technology company worldwide.
“Epson’s heritage as a watchmaker is core to its expertise in developing high performance precision technologies. Epson will continue to leverage our core technologies to create new innovations that will meet new needs across our focus segments, to bring new value to our customers through precision and smart technologies, and that will reduce impact to the environment,” said Toshimitsu Tanaka, Managing Director, Epson Singapore.
Robotics Innovation
Epson is a global leader in high-precision SCARA robots which are deployed in the manufacturing industry for a wide variety of applications.
With the recent development of high-precision force sensors in Epson robots, the robots can accurately and consistently sense forces as limited as 0.1 Newton. With this, Epson’s robots are able to perform intricate and precise tasks, to address tasks requiring automation. Going forward, Epson envisions developing robots to see, sense, think and work like humans, and working alongside and supporting humans in a variety of situations.
The industrial robotics business at Epson targets to grow by 150% for FY16, driven by strong demand in Southeast Asia.
Inkjet Innovation (Business Printing)
Epson’s growth for its printers is driven by its Micro Piezo and PrecisionCore printhead technology, which has been incorporated across its business and ink tank system printers to ensure durability and reliability. Demand for ink tank printers continues to expand, with growth in SE Asia at 17% in FY15.
With the roll-out of its business inkjets for offices in Southeast Asia, Epson aims to drive growth in the office and enterprise segment with its Replaceable Ink Pack System (RIPS) business printers. The RIPS printer is able to print up to 75,000 pages with each ink pack set, which offer lower page yields compared to laser printers. It also reduces the use of consumables and lower carbon emissions in comparison to laser printers.
Epson is also making efforts to contribute to customers’ work processes by reducing the environmental impact of its products. As part of this initiative, Epson will combine its compact inkjet printers with its PaperLab office papermaking system, to provide a sustainable office printing ecosystem. The world’s first in-office paper recycler to use a dry process , PaperLab, which Epson plans to launch in Japan later this year, recycles waste paper in the office to provide a source of office paper, while eliminating the need to store and transport documents to recycling facilities.
Inkjet Innovation (Industrial Printing)
Epson’s growth in its professional printing business continues to expand, with growth of 6% for its large format printers for FY15, and forecasted growth of 13% for FY16. Epson’s PrecisionCore printhead technology continues to drive product development and innovations with its scalability, enabling printing across different media from fabric to signages, and with a variety of inks.
Epson will focus on its digital textile, signage and label printing business to drive growth. In the area of digital textile printing, Epson currently has 85% market share for dye-sublimation digital textile printing within Southeast Asia. Through its collaboration with Robustelli, Epson plans to roll-out its high-end direct-to-garment roll-to-roll digital textile printer within the region, and will continue to develop technologies to meet the needs of customers across the different segments.
Visual Communications Innovation
As the company with the largest market share worldwide at 32%, and at 23% in SE Asia, Epson has continued to dominate the projector market for 3LCD business and home projectors, with interactive projectors driving its growth.
Epson will be launching its new high brightness laser projectors in Southeast Asia this year, along with its 25,000 lumens 3LCD laser projector, which would be the world’s first brightest 3LCD projector to date.
Later this year Epson will be launching the Moverio BT-300, which is the lightest OLED binocular smart glasses and sets the standard for augmented reality smart eyewear. With a focus on developing the smart glasses for commercial and business markets in Southeast Asia, Epson continues to work with business customers and independent software vendors (ISVs) to develop the ecosystem and grow awareness of its smart glasses.
The new BT-300 features Epson’s cutting edge silicon-based OLED (organic light emitting diode) digital display technology, enabling reductions in power usage and weight, and improvements in response time. This cutting edge technology also provides a seamless augmented reality experience in high quality images with greater contrasts, richer colours, and higher brightness.
Epson’s Moverio range was first launched in 2011 with the BT-100, supplemented in 2014 with the BT-200, and again in 2016 with the Moverio Pro BT-2000.
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